Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn ImagesJacob Trouba, Chris Kreider and Brett Howden always wanted to make the playoffs when they played in New York.
A post season game at The Garden was roughly equivalent to a World Series game at Yankee Stadium.
And the honorable alumni skaters enjoyed a precious few and that's why they wanted more.
But a manager named Chris Drury dispatched those valiant warriors as far West as you can go without being in Hawaii. Poof! Just like that Howden was in Vegas and his former buddies enjoying the fruits of beautiful, downtown Anaheim.
Make no mistake, the exiled lads are not complaining. Howden thinks Vegas is Heaven and while Troubs and Kreids have embraced the Ducks and vice versa.
Kreider won't win the Hart Trophy and Trouba won't win the Norris but both have had their fun. (Trouba will be an unrestricted free agent and theoretically could return to the Rangers – but won't.)
Thanks to the former Broadway duo, the twosome helped coach Joel Quenneville defy the odds and lifted the Ducks two wins into the second playoff round against John Tortorella's Vegas sextet before it was over and out in six.
Meanwhile, ex-Ranger Howden and John Tortorella both are living it up with the Golden Knights who will enter the third playoff round on Wednesday against the Colorado Avalanche.
Need I say that among the endless Rangers blunders, the deportations of Howden, Trouba and
Kreider – not to mention the firing of Torts – rank among MSG's worst mistakes.